Water vapour is
extraordinarily invasive and the food wastage it causes
has been estimated to cost hundreds of millions of pounds
a year. Packaging that uses suitable permeability
materials can substantially extend product life, prevent
products drying-out, over-hydrating, and considerably
reduce this waste.

Far and away
the most critical factor is water vapour  and
vapour permeability experts Versaperm have introduced a
new generation of instrumentation to measure this for the
food and packaging industries.

The Versaperm WVTR (Water Vapour Transmission) MK VI
meters highly automated computerised control can
cope with several samples at a time - and still give a
reading in as little as 30 minutes for some materials.
The conventionally gravimetric measurement technique
takes several days and gives significantly less accurate
/ reproducible results.

The MK VI gives results that can be accurate to better
than one part per million (with some samples a few parts
per hundred million). Sensitivities are typically in the
range 0.05 - 3200g/m²/day.

As well as
vapour transmission, the equipment can be used to measure
the Equilibrium Relative Humidity (ERH) of foods.
Versaperm also operates a laboratory service for
companies where the volume or logistics of measurements
does not demand a dedicated instrument.